Reference
X955/1/82
Title
To Mr Richard Colenutt
Date free text
4 Feb 1893
Production date
From: 1893 To: 1893
Scope and Content
To Mr. Colenutt
9, High Wickham,Hasting
My dear friend
I send you the papers about the gas cooking. The name of the firm that supplied my brother-in-law’s cooking range is Saggatt Ho. 100 Shaftsbury Avenue, London. They are the London agents. It would be worth your while to send for drawings if only to see how ingenious the invention is.
The drawings of my own grate I will let you have as soon as I can find it. 1/6 in stamps herewith for Woods bill for mending my portmanteau.
Please, on Molly’s behalf, thank Mrs Colenutt for the socks and seeds. We shall of course plant the seeds but we don’t know whether to put them in the open or in a pot. Let me have what you wrote about the vine. I shall forget half of what you told me before the time arrives. I heard an odd story about Wix (1) who used to be parson at Swanmore.
A lady friend of ours here once stayed at Swanmore rectory house with G. H. Lewes (2), George Eliot (3) and Madame Bodichon (4) . Wix had let the house and it was Christmas time. On Christmas day Lewes said he had a surprise by way of Christmas dinner. A dish was brought up with great ceremony; the cover was whipped off and lo! There was a scourge with which Wix was in the habit of flagellating himself!!. This tale was told me the day before yesterday and my authority is a very exact veracious person.
I enjoyed my visit very much, save Charley’s expulsion from his bed.
Love from us both to yourself Mrs Colenutt & kind regards to Mr Wright if he is still with you.
Faithfully yours
W. Hale White
(1)Wix , Edward (1802–1866) the eldest son of the Rev. Samuel Wix (1771 – 1861) became archdeacon of
Newfoundland and, later, vicar of Swanmore, near Ryde, Isle of Wight.
(2) Lewes, George Henry ( 1817 – 1878)
(3) Eliot, George (1819 – 1880) Novelist real name Mary Ann Evans
(4) Bodichon, Barbara Leigh Smith (1827–1891), artist and women's activist… In the early 1850s she met
Marian Evans (George Eliot), who regarded Barbara as her „first friend. (George Eliot Letters, 3.63).
Level of description
item